Outlining the Standards
by Stephanie Capalbo

Stephanie Capalbo is working toward National Board Certification as an Early Childhood Generalist.

September 22, 2003

Now I need a plan for the next step of this process. I decide that to fully understand what is being asked of me during this process, it would be worthwhile to analyze each of my portfolio entries in terms of the standards associated with them. I am using a form that outlines what the National Boards value in each entry, along with what I need to do to show that I have met the criteria. Just as we teach our students to do, I am going to go to the rubric for each entry to retrieve the information. Knowing what is expected of me based on the rubrics provided will enable me to focus my written entries and videotaped lessons to the specifications outlined in the entries. Several standards are associated with the early childhood generalist certification. By using this process, I can become more knowledgeable about the standards, while finding more meaningful ways to implement and highlight them in my classroom practices. My plan is to use the outlines as a checklist I can use while reading my written entries to see if I have indeed done all I could have done to achieve the standards set for each entry. Previous diary entry Next diary entry

Meet Stephanie Capalbo Stephanie Capalbo received a bachelor's degree in psychology with a concentration in elementary education from Rhode Island College in May 1995. She became certified in early childhood education in August 1997. For the past six years, Stephanie has been teaching kindergarten at Bradford Elementary School in Westerly, Rhode Island. In the fall of 2000, the kindergarten at Bradford became the first and only kindergarten in the district to receive accreditation by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). In 2003, Stephanie was named Westerly's Wal-Mart Teacher of the Year.

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